Two TSMC Executives Picked to Head Chunghwa Telecom and Acer

Both Rick Tsai and Jason Chen, two former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) executives, will take up top positions on Jan. 1, 2014 at Chugnhwa Telecom Co., Ltd. and Acer Inc., respectively.

While Acer announced on Dec. 23 to take on Chen as president and chief executive officer,  Taiwan's Cabinet approved meanwhile Tsai's appointment as chairman of Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd., a partly-state-held firm.

Tsai was the former chairman and chief executive officer of TSMC Solar Ltd. and TSMC Solid State Lighting Ltd. ,while Chen was TSMC Senior Vice President for worldwide sales and marketing.

People knowledgeable about the Cabinet's decision believe appointing Tsai as Chunghw Chairman is a “creative” idea, as the Cabinet's recruitment of Tsai to head Taiwan's No.1 telecom brings onboard someone with abundant experience in managing a multinational company to combat increasing challenge in the 4G field from financially strong new entrants such as the Hon Hai Group.

Industry executives believe incumbent Chunghwa Chairman Y.S. Lee will not be retained by the government at the age of 65 as was his predecessor, S.J. Lu, all because he had failed to soften Chunghwa's internal resistance to the government's policy to free up the carrier's resources for last-mile connection to end users. Tsai, as a former TSMC CEO, is thought to be able to reinvigorate Chunghwa.

Although some question Tsai's capability in steering a telecom provider without experience in the telecom industry, senior government officials believe Tsai is capable of comfortably managing Chunghwa with his experience in TSMC.

They feel that the technology side can be handled by the company's engineers, not necessarily by Tsai, who is a material-science Ph.D., also noting the two former chairmen, D. Hochen and C.K. Mao, managed very well without  telecom-science degree.

Chariman Stan Shih has high regard for Acer's new CEO and president Chen, aged 52, who was Intel Corp.'s vice president before leaving for TSMC.

Industry executives believe Acer needs someone familiar with the PC industry and experience as senior executive at Intel, with Chen's primary task to turn around the company to profitability and build Acer's cloud computing-based business model.

Chen arrives at Acer at a time when the Taiwan's No.1 brand PC maker has recently posted huge losses, resulting in the shakeup that has vacated the  former chairman J.T. Wang,  former president, J.R. Weng, and senior corporate vice president Walter Depeller. (KL)